It's the economy, stupid!

There's a stark example of Sydney's property losses in Mascot NSW according to this Domain listing. Failed to sell yesterday for $900,000 but it last sold in August 2017 (right at the peak of the boom) for $1.3 million.

Personally I don't like Mascot, too industrial and too much noise from the airport; but those losses (if realised) are astonishing. Assuming 80 weeks of holding the property, that makes the weekly loss $5,000. Gob-smacking. Try convincing those poor people that buying into Sydney property was a good idea and would set you up for life as the NSW Minister for Housing said some 2 years ago...!

EDIT: No off-street parking, that would be a deal-breaker for me...

Posted: 31 Mar 2019 21:05

Last edited by don_dunstan on 31 Mar 2019 21:24; edited 1 time in total

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There's a stark example of Sydney's property losses in Mascot NSW according to this Domain listing. Failed to sell yesterday for $900,000 but it last sold in August 2017 (right at the peak of the boom) for $1.3 million.

Personally I don't like Mascot, too industrial and too much noise from the airport; but those losses (if realised) are astonishing. Assuming 80 weeks of holding the property, that makes the weekly loss $5,000. Gob-smacking. Try convincing those poor people that buying into Sydney property was a good idea and would set you up for life as the NSW Minister for Housing said some 2 years ago...!

EDIT: No off-street parking, that would be a deal-breaker for me...don_dunstan

It's actually worse than that. People have saved for a substantial deposit only to see the deposit disappear as the price of their dream house falls and perhaps into negative value. The moral of the story is that more people should buy something cheaper and with a decent deposit will only take 10 years or so to pay off.

Don, inner city housing should be banned from having off street parking and heavy restrictions placed on on street parking. But adequate public transport should be provided. That's why I like the Sydney light rail project.

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Don, inner city housing should be banned from having off street parking and heavy restrictions placed on on street parking. But adequate public transport should be provided. That's why I like the Sydney light rail project.nswtrains

Woo there, NSW trains. "Banned from off-street parking", are you kidding? Lets take off the rosey coloured glasses and look at this with some commonsense.

Most redevelopments are multi story and even if allowed only one car per property there would still be grossly insufficient space on the streets.

Friend of mine lives in a redeveloped property in Brisbane, single house block converted to 4 units. Each has a 2 off-street car spaces thanks to use of lift technology. The street would only have sufficient space for 3 cars tops, however ironically because of the street design street parking is actually banned. There are two empty spaces in their driveway for visitors.

So yes, if the residents fill the streets, as they do in places like Balmain where few older town houses have garages, where do visitors and people doing work etc park?

Then there is the theft and vandalism factor, do you want the streets filled with old cars because no one wants to invest in a nice shinny new car for fear of it being "keyed", stolen, broken in too.

What about mums coming home with infants and shopping, trying to deal with both and not having to deal with the car or her bag being interfered with by some FW.

You got that completely wrong, on-street parking should be banned for properties being redeveloped. Single Bedroom, must have 1 car space, 2 beds and beyond, 1 car space per bedroom.

...and for the record I lived in a flat in inner Brisbane for a year, we had car space, we brought down one of our cars from Gladstone. It was mostly used for shopping about every 2 weeks or so only as we both walked to work, but also Visiting friends and family or going to other places beyond the PT catchment.

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Don, inner city housing should be banned from having off street parking and heavy restrictions placed on on street parking. But adequate public transport should be provided. That's why I like the Sydney light rail project.Woo there, NSW trains. "Banned from off-street parking", are you kidding? Lets take off the rosey coloured glasses and look at this with some commonsense.

Most redevelopments are multi story and even if allowed only one car per property there would still be grossly insufficient space on the streets.

Friend of mine lives in a redeveloped property in Brisbane, single house block converted to 4 units. Each has a 2 off-street car spaces thanks to use of lift technology. The street would only have sufficient space for 3 cars tops, however ironically because of the street design street parking is actually banned. There are two empty spaces in their driveway for visitors.

So yes, if the residents fill the streets, as they do in places like Balmain where few older town houses have garages, where do visitors and people doing work etc park?

Then there is the theft and vandalism factor, do you want the streets filled with old cars because no one wants to invest in a nice shinny new car for fear of it being "keyed", stolen, broken in too.

What about mums coming home with infants and shopping, trying to deal with both and not having to deal with the car or her bag being interfered with by some FW.

You got that completely wrong, on-street parking should be banned for properties being redeveloped. Single Bedroom, must have 1 car space, 2 beds and beyond, 1 car space per bedroom.

...and for the record I lived in a flat in inner Brisbane for a year, we had car space, we brought down one of our cars from Gladstone. It was mostly used for shopping about every 2 weeks or so only as we both walked to work, but also Visiting friends and family or going to other places beyond the PT catchment.RTT_Rules

I hate not having a shed or carport - I don't use my car all the time but I like it to be off the street when I'm not using it. My car got broken into a few times when living in inner Melbourne but as I don't keep anything interesting or valuable in there beyond meter change in the sunglasses spot it wasn't really a drama - that was all they were looking for. So on the whole off-street secure parking is how I prefer to live (and how I live now).

AND I guess need my space around me too - I haven't lived in a flat/apartment since the nineties and I'd be horrified if I had to hear my neighbours on any of my walls/floors now...

Sydney has cracked -11% year-on-year, Melbourne is about to breach -10% year-on-year. Definitely bad news if you are a vendor in either of those cities right now. Even my own city of Adelaide is joining in more recently falling half a percent in the last quarter. It'll be a serious challenge whoever wins the upcoming federal elections given our national dependency on the value of real estate.

Australia has other capital cities that offer better value for those willing to make the change.ANR

ON the other hand you have to find a job where-ever you've moved. There's also a lot of capital losses across country Australia, parts of regional South Australia are experiencing huge falls at the moment - Property Observer:

A Port Lincoln, SA mortgagee house has been sold for $129,000.

This marks an $81,000 reduction on it's 2006 sale price of $210,000.

Luke Duncan of Kemp Real Estate held the listing.

Apparently it was a rental property but the landlord was unable to make payments because they didn't have a tenant - the exact same scenario is probably playing out all over the nation.

Posted: 05 Apr 2019 20:09

Last edited by don_dunstan on 05 Apr 2019 20:10; edited 1 time in total

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There's an interesting debate regarding car spaces in the City of Moreland in Melbourne (Brunswick/Coburg etc) at present.

It's well serviced by PT, but the well-heeled who increasingly live there now still like to have a vehicle or three (to get to Chaddy, or the vineyard, or office out in the 'burbs). If Bill and the Greens wants them to buy EVs, how will they charge them at home if some of them are parked on the street?

And Moreland are wanting to remove the requirement for car spaces. A noble goal, but people are going to have to wean themselves off car dependency or live elsewhere...

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I'm surprised the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moreland didn't think about the need to charge electric vehicles at night. When I was living in Stonnington there were quite a few high rise developments being permitted near Chapel Street with no off-street parking whatsoever - a recipe for trouble further down the track in my opinion as the tenants/occupiers will end up parking on the street.

Electric vehicles are a rubbish idea anyway, if Bill Shorten and company want us to be all driving them by 2030 then why doesn't a single ALP front-bencher have one? That's because they hate them as much as the rest of us do but they're going to force us to have them anyway whether we want them or not.

The economics of electric vehicles simply don't stack up in Australia as I've written before - in the United States you can charge your electric car on tariffs as low as 8 cents per kw/h whereas here in 'crazy for unreliables' South Australia the basic tariff charge is 47 cents kw/h, we have the most expensive domestic electricity in the world and it makes things like electric cars much less viable as a result.

And yesterday our do-nothing Premier Steve Marshall finally announced that the NSW-SA high voltage transmission line would be built at a cost of about $3 billion to be passed directly onto poor long-suffering SA electricity consumers making our already world-beating electricity even more un-affordable.

No wonder there's no jobs or industry here, you'd have to be mad to try and run any sort of a business with that kind of overhead.

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I'm surprised the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moreland didn't think about the need to charge electric vehicles at night. When I was living in Stonnington there were quite a few high rise developments being permitted near Chapel Street with no off-street parking whatsoever - a recipe for trouble further down the track in my opinion as the tenants/occupiers will end up parking on the street.

Electric vehicles are a rubbish idea anyway, if Bill Shorten and company want us to be all driving them by 2030 then why doesn't a single ALP front-bencher have one? That's because they hate them as much as the rest of us do but they're going to force us to have them anyway whether we want them or not.

The economics of electric vehicles simply don't stack up in Australia as I've written before - in the United States you can charge your electric car on tariffs as low as 8 cents per kw/h whereas here in 'crazy for unreliables' South Australia the basic tariff charge is 47 cents kw/h, we have the most expensive domestic electricity in the world and it makes things like electric cars much less viable as a result.

And yesterday our do-nothing Premier Steve Marshall finally announced that the NSW-SA high voltage transmission line would be built at a cost of about $3 billion to be passed directly onto poor long-suffering SA electricity consumers making our already world-beating electricity even more un-affordable.

No wonder there's no jobs or industry here, you'd have to be mad to try and run any sort of a business with that kind of overhead.don_dunstan

I can tell you no one in the world is buying EV's based on economics and hence why most EV's are still rated luxury vehicles. Australia's range of choice is also very poor and hence their lack of any reasonable popularity.

Agree in South Oz, you need to charge them at night when tariffs are much cheaper, or build a 10kW PV system on your roof.

But Shorten's got alot of work to do if he wants EV to take off as the power prices are simply too high and 50% of EV's needs to double the grid daily output.

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people are going to have to wean themselves off car dependency or live elsewhere...Carnot

The way I see it, wherever you live you can never really live without owning a car. Even in cities well served by public transport, surely in this vast country the average citizen will want to travel to places where public transport is either non-existent or scarce?

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Instead of considering the purchase or lease of expensive lux vehicles out of Germany for use as commonwealth cars to chauffeur the pollies around, what is wrong with an EV Camry or corolla?

Bill's strategy is to take votes off the greens this fed election. Despite the forecasts of the NRMA and so called car production plans from the major manufacturers, fossil fuel powered cars will be around for a very long time. If they stop making them, there will be big money poured into repower production like Cummins is doing with its small diesel engines in North America. It will extend the life of the average car and will sell big.

Bill doesn't care much for the environment. Look at his stance on green issues in vic, versus his love for Adani in qld.

Posted: 06 Apr 2019 18:40

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people are going to have to wean themselves off car dependency or live elsewhere...

The way I see it, wherever you live you can never really live without owning a car. Even in cities well served by public transport, surely in this vast country the average citizen will want to travel to places where public transport is either non-existent or scarce?Graham4405

In 2003, we lived in inner Brisbane for a year, 10min walk from Roma Street Station in Spring Hill, I worked opposite the Casino but at times Milton and wife was in Milton, 500m from the station. We brought down one car and left the other in Gladstone for when did the occasional trip home (by plane). I'm not sure which one got used less. We used train alot for work and play, although Brisbane is not as accessible by PT as I'm used to in Sydney.

In Spring Hill our car had off-street parking, but if it got a flat battery it was difficult to charge apart from jump start, so we drove it every 2-3 weeks to the Supermarket 1.5km away just to charge battery if not used in between. Wife's parents live in Tamborine and that's very much drive to get there and back. However had they lived in suburban Brisbane it would have been one less reason not to need a car. We also had a boat stored at a friends we took out occasionally. However at the time no kids.

So yes I think you could go car less, but it would depend our lifestyle and I think without kids its much easier.

I believe in places like New York its quite common not to own a car, but rent when needed. Considering these days you have rental cars parked randomly on the street you can access via an app on your phone 24h a day. I think this is the future for inner city living if so desired, especially if 99% of the time your car is simply something small or maybe EV. For that rare trip where this small, maybe EV car doesn't work for you you rent what you need rather than own it 24/7/365 and incur all the costs that go with it. The likes of Ubre have also reduced the cost of taxi style car transport so makes it easier to not use a car or not own a car. All depends on your lifestyle and location.

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Inflation pulls an official zero for the last quarter while the RBA says that's nothing to panic about. I guess if Shorten gets elected the resulting spending wave will lift inflation.

Also interesting to note that CoreLogic released figures showing the average drop in the price of the average Sydney house has been $125,000 since the peak in 2017... and it's showing no signs of slowing down. This is bound to make lots of consumers even more nervous about spending or taking on more debt - and let's face it the consumer is the only thing driving our economy in 2019.

Whoever gets elected next month has some pretty tough sets of problems to face...

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True, but I love driving. Many of our holidays are road trips. Car hire in this country is ridiculously expensive.Graham4405

When we go home I rent a 4x4 dual cab as I want to tow my boat and no normal rental cars come with tow bars, this isn't cheap pushing $80/day. However small sedan/hatch I find competitive with our OS rentals. Last August, brand new car from Mascot return to Mascot was ~$35/day. Camry's around $45/day. I use a generic rental booking site, but if you go for 2nd hand cars its even cheaper.

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True, but I love driving. Many of our holidays are road trips. Car hire in this country is ridiculously expensive.

When we go home I rent a 4x4 dual cab as I want to tow my boat and no normal rental cars come with tow bars, this isn't cheap pushing $80/day. However small sedan/hatch I find competitive with our OS rentals. Last August, brand new car from Mascot return to Mascot was ~$35/day. Camry's around $45/day. I use a generic rental booking site, but if you go for 2nd hand cars its even cheaper.

Airport to airport rental, even one way is usually the cheapest.RTT_Rules

The last time I hired a car in Australia it was a Camry in Darwin in 2012, $1200 for 2 weeks ("free triple upgrade" from a Nissan Tiida or similar). Last year I hired a Volvo V40 in the UK for 5 weeks for about the same money!

Posted: 26 Apr 2019 23:00

Last edited by Graham4405 on 26 Apr 2019 23:01; edited 1 time in total

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True, but I love driving. Many of our holidays are road trips. Car hire in this country is ridiculously expensive.

When we go home I rent a 4x4 dual cab as I want to tow my boat and no normal rental cars come with tow bars, this isn't cheap pushing $80/day. However small sedan/hatch I find competitive with our OS rentals. Last August, brand new car from Mascot return to Mascot was ~$35/day. Camry's around $45/day. I use a generic rental booking site, but if you go for 2nd hand cars its even cheaper.

Airport to airport rental, even one way is usually the cheapest.

The last time I hired a car in Australia it was a Camry in Darwin in 2012, $1200 for 2 weeks ("free triple upgrade" from a Nissan Tiida or similar). Last year I hired a Volvo V40 in the UK for 5 weeks for about the same money!Graham4405

Could have been your timing with local demand

I just searched the generic websites
Brisbane, Tida, 14 days from 1st May = $672
London Heathrow, cheapest car available, i10 = $1207

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Inflation pulls an official zero for the last quarter while the RBA says that's nothing to panic about. I guess if Shorten gets elected the resulting spending wave will lift inflation.

Also interesting to note that CoreLogic released figures showing the average drop in the price of the average Sydney house has been $125,000 since the peak in 2017... and it's showing no signs of slowing down. This is bound to make lots of consumers even more nervous about spending or taking on more debt - and let's face it the consumer is the only thing driving our economy in 2019.

Whoever gets elected next month has some pretty tough sets of problems to face...don_dunstan

Its been predicted to drop at least 20%, more if ALP win and implement the removal of Neg gearing although I think this is hyped up as investors have mostly left the 2nd hand market anyway. Likely two reasons, one simply no returns and the other factoring in a likely ALP win and risk that ALP may make the existing neg gearing investors exposed to retrospective rules or at least time limited.

If it drops by 20% in Sydney and Mel by mid 2020, then I think the country will be in a better shape long term as this reduces the average future mortgage to 7-8 x average income thus leaving money left over to actually help drive the economy.

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I just searched the generic websites
Brisbane, Tida, 14 days from 1st May = $672
London Heathrow, cheapest car available, i10 = $1207RTT_Rules

Agree, last time I hired a car to drive around Melbourne through Thrifty and it was only $180 for a week for a Lancer - although I picked it up at a city location rather than the airport. If you book ahead and book for a whole week you'll generally get some good deals.

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Inflation pulls an official zero for the last quarter while the RBA says that's nothing to panic about. I guess if Shorten gets elected the resulting spending wave will lift inflation.

Also interesting to note that CoreLogic released figures showing the average drop in the price of the average Sydney house has been $125,000 since the peak in 2017... and it's showing no signs of slowing down. This is bound to make lots of consumers even more nervous about spending or taking on more debt - and let's face it the consumer is the only thing driving our economy in 2019.

Whoever gets elected next month has some pretty tough sets of problems to face...

Its been predicted to drop at least 20%, more if ALP win and implement the removal of Neg gearing although I think this is hyped up as investors have mostly left the 2nd hand market anyway. Likely two reasons, one simply no returns and the other factoring in a likely ALP win and risk that ALP may make the existing neg gearing investors exposed to retrospective rules or at least time limited.

If it drops by 20% in Sydney and Mel by mid 2020, then I think the country will be in a better shape long term as this reduces the average future mortgage to 7-8 x average income thus leaving money left over to actually help drive the economy.RTT_Rules

As someone who has worked in the property industry most of my life, the current downturn is something that had to be inevitable. The rising prices in Sydney and Melbourne in particular, fuelled by low interest rates and greed, was unsustainable. The correction is now happening and that's a good thing, although there will be some short term pain, to bring the market back into equilibrium.

I agree that there's too much hype about the removal of negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions proposed by the Labor Party. It will have a minimal effect on property prices. Most existing property investors won't be affected, because of the grandfathering provisions which they propose. I seriously doubt if Labor would backtrack on this core commitment. Under the Labor policy, investors can still negatively gear by investing in new developments, which is a more sensible policy by encouraging an increase in the housing stock, rather than investing in the existing limited supply of available housing, competing with potential owner occupiers, particularly in the inner suburban regions.

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Trainstopic
If I could vote on policy alone, I'd vote out Neg gearing. I looked up the original history for when it was removed by Hawke and later reinstated and the so called increase in housing price argument was then and still is BS.

I also think the time now is as good as any to remove it. There are no investors in the market anyway.

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Trainstopic
If I could vote on policy alone, I'd vote out Neg gearing. I looked up the original history for when it was removed by Hawke and later reinstated and the so called increase in housing price argument was then and still is BS.

I also think the time now is as good as any to remove it. There are no investors in the market anyway.RTT_Rules

It's not the government's job to help people in a good position to get richer. 'Socialism' is very much in the eye of the beholder.

The Labor policy is very reasonable. Existing speculation will be protected and in future it will be limited to new build properties. It's far more intelligent use of this government incentive as it puts money back into the real economy.

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Our rubbish service industry economy continues to deteriorate with jobs and wages going backwards - retail being the hardest hit. From Business Insider:

According to the Australian Industry Group, employment fell, wages went backwards as sales and new orders continued to decline, albeit at a slower pace than a month earlier.

In trend terms, employment across the sector is now declining at the fastest pace since early 2016, a result at odds with the recent acceleration in hiring reported in official data from the ABS.

The wages subindex was also fairly dire, dropping by a substantial 10.9 points to 48.2 in seasonally adjusted terms, the lowest level on record...

...Activity levels at retailers remained dire, deteriorating at a faster pace than a month earlier. That’s a concern given this sub-sector is the largest individual employer in Australia behind healthcare.

“Retail trade remains particularly weak,” the Ai Group commented.

I'm not sure how the economy is supposed to generate the inflation the RBA wants when everything is going backwards at a rate of knots. At this rate we'll be crashing into an official recession in no time, with or without record numbers of migrants.

Welcome to the Hawke/Keating services economy where everyone gets a chance at working harder in tenuous, unstable jobs for less money.

Posted: 04 May 2019 12:28

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Trainstopic
If I could vote on policy alone, I'd vote out Neg gearing. I looked up the original history for when it was removed by Hawke and later reinstated and the so called increase in housing price argument was then and still is BS.

I also think the time now is as good as any to remove it. There are no investors in the market anyway.

It's not the government's job to help people in a good position to get richer. 'Socialism' is very much in the eye of the beholder.

The Labor policy is very reasonable. Existing speculation will be protected and in future it will be limited to new build properties. It's far more intelligent use of this government incentive as it puts money back into the real economy.Groundrelay

unfortunately its one of the few "makes sense" policy's the ALP have and with their win in two weeks looking increasingly under threat or certainly not as a majority due to their number one handicap, Billy repeatedly putting foot in mouth, the likelihood of their legislation being approved is unlikely or very much watered down.